1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to electrically stimulating areas of the body, and more particularly, to temporarily stimulating areas of the body including muscles for silent notification of an event and/or for therapeutic treatment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless communication devices, such as cellular telephones, are well known in the art. Other devices, such as pagers, PDA's, palmtops, laptops, and others, are also well known in the art, and, similar to cellular telephones, can be provided with receivers for wirelessly receiving information.
When an originator of a message, whether voice, data or a combination thereof, wishes to communicate the message to a destination device, the originator utilizes an origination device to wirelessly transmit the information through the free space e.g. air, to the destination device. Upon receiving the information, the destination device has a variety of options on how to deal with the incoming information. If the device is configured to handle the reception, the device may automatically perform an operation with the information, for instance save it to a memory within the destination device. The device can be also configured to alert a user that an incoming message has arrived, for example in a simple example, a telephone ring.
The alert functionality of a wireless device is currently offered in several modes, such as an audible alert, an audible alert with varying volume, an illuminating alert, a visual display alert, a vibrating alert, and more. Each of the previously listed alert modes can be selected to best fit the environment that the user is in. For instance, when a user is outdoors, the user may wish to have the device set to the loudest audible alert so it can be head it over other competing noises. When indoors, where the environment may be quieter than outdoors, the user may wish to set an audible alert to a lower level. In a movie theater, for instance, where a user cannot answer the incoming call or deal with the incoming data, the user may set the alert mode to a silent alert, such as a flashing light. However, unless the user is in visual communication with the device, the user will not see the flashing light.
Prior art designs have tried to silently notify a wearer of an incoming communication by providing a vibrating alert, which produces a vibration, or shaking motion within the device. However, the vibrating alert many times produces an audible sound, especially when the wireless device is left on a surface such as a table top. The vibration on such a surface can be easily detected in quiet environments such as business meetings. This vibration is often times unintentionally distracting to others.
Accordingly, a need exists for a notifier that alerts a user to an incoming message or data without producing an audible sound and without requiring the user to visually check for the message.